6.  The applicant was born in 1980 and lives in Moscow.
7.  On 15 July 2004 the applicant was arrested on suspicion of robbery. He claimed that on the same day, in an attempt to extract a confession, a police officer had beaten him during an interview.
8.  On 16 July 2004 the Zamoskvoretskiy District Court of Moscow authorised the applicant’s detention until 19 July 2004. By further orders of 19 July, 3 September and 29 October 2004, 1 March, 3 May, 20 and 28 October 2005, and 17 January and 4 April 2006, the Zamoskvoretskiy and Izmaylovskiy District Courts extended the authorised period of the applicant’s detention. These orders cited the gravity of the charges, the possibility of the applicant’s absconding and the complexity of the criminal case as the main reasons for the continued detention.
9.  From 23 July to 10 September 2004 the applicant was placed in remand prison IZ-77/1 in Moscow. He claimed that the facility had been overcrowded and that the cells had been in a poor sanitary condition.
10.  On 20 July 2006 the Izmaylovskiy District Court found the applicant guilty as charged and gave him a custodial sentence.
11.  On 20 September 2004 the applicant ‒ who by that time had been transferred to remand prison IZ-77/6 in Moscow ‒ dispatched a complaint to the Court through the prison postal service.
12.  For unknown reasons, instead of sending the letter to the Court the prison authorities sent it to the Administration of the President of Russia. From there it was transferred to the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office.
13.  On 14 October 2004 the applicant was notified that a prosecutor in the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office had examined his complaint to the Court and considered his allegations to be unfounded. Among other things, the applicant was informed that he should await a final decision in his criminal case in order to have exhausted the available domestic remedies in respect of his grievances prior to complaining to the Court.
14.  On 27 October 2004 the applicant sent another letter to the Court which read as follows:
“Complaint.
[Hereby I] lodge [this] complaint about unlawful actions of the [Russian] executive and judiciary [authorities].
I consider that their actions have violated Articles 3, 5, 6 and 13 of the European Convention [on Human Rights].
I will submit all the necessary evidence [thereof] together with the completed official application form.
I request you to register my complaint, to attribute it a number and to send me an official application form, an instruction for filling it in and the text of the Convention.
I request you to send the reply at the address of my detention.”
The letter reached the Court on 23 November 2004.
15.  On 23 November 2004 the Zamoskvoretskiy District Court of Moscow examined the applicant’s complaint regarding the examination of his correspondence of 20 September 2004 by the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office and found:
“The applicant complained about... the rejection [by the deputy prosecutor] of his complaint [to the European Court of Human Rights].
Prosecutor L. submitted that the complaint should be rejected on the following grounds.
Despite the fact that the applicant’s letter was addressed to the European Court [of Human Rights], the prison [authorities] sent it to the Administration of the President of Russia, as is apparent from the stamp on the envelope. The Administration of the President, in turn, redirected Mr Kopanitsyn’s correspondence to the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office ... Mr Kopanitsyn’s letter was allocated to [its] division 35 and examined on the merits.
The fact that the [personnel of the] remand prison dispatched the complaint to the Administration of the President of Russia instead of the European Court [of Human Rights], is beyond the scope of the prosecutor’s competencies and does not invalidate the prosecutor’s actions.
Having regard to the parties’ submissions and having examined the documents, the court considers that the complaint must be rejected... and that there are no grounds to declare the actions of the deputy prosecutor unlawful, as the applicant’s complaint was forwarded from the Administration of the President of Russia and [therefore] the prosecutor’s office [was obliged] to examine it.
The fact that the [personnel of the] remand prison dispatched the complaint to the Administration of the President of Russia instead of the European Court [of Human Rights], is beyond the scope of the prosecutor’s competencies and is not a subject of the present proceedings.”
This decision was essentially confirmed by the same court on 2 February 2005 in response to repeated complaints from the applicant in connection with the same problem.
16.  The decisions of 23 November 2004 and 2 February 2005 were upheld on appeal by the Moscow City Court on 23 December 2004 and 7 April 2005, respectively.
17.  In the meantime, on 24 November 2004 the applicant received another letter from the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office, which stated:
“It was established that your complaint addressed to the European Court of Human Rights was rightfully examined by the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office [acting] on assignment from the Administration of the President of Russia. According to Article 35 of the Convention on Human Rights, the [European] Court is competent to examine applications only when all the domestic remedies were exhausted... and lodged no later than six months from the date of the final domestic decision.
As you [currently have the status of] an accused in a criminal case which has not yet been heard by [the domestic] courts, the European Court of Human Rights may accept [your] complaint only after the judgment in your case would be given and the final decision of the supervisory review instance [court] would be taken.”
18.  In letters dated 1 and 22 February 2005 the Moscow Department of the Federal Service for the Execution of Sentences informed the applicant that there had been no malfunctioning of the prison postal service and that they had no explanation as to why the application form of 20 September 2004 had reached the President’s Office rather than the Court.
19.  On 22 February 2005 the applicant submitted the completed application form which reached the Court on 25 April 2005.
20.  On 7 September and 27 November 2009 the applicant, who was serving the sentence in a correctional colony at the time, sent two letters to Mr Finogenov, his representative before the Court. It appears that these letters were dispatched by the colony administration on 31 October and 10 December 2009, respectively.